Essay 2: Women in the Islam: What they can do to help themselves.

In America, as in almost all Western countries, women have the freedom to go wherever they want, marry whomever they want, and think whatever they want. However, in most of the Islamic world this is not true. All the countries that live under strict Islamic law (Iran, Syria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and many more) have rules that limit women’s freedom to the extent that women are not allowed to show their hair, they are not allowed to wander the streets on their own and they are not allowed to speak their mind about what they think. The women’s oppression does not end here; women are often stoned to death or raped because of things as vague as rumors. The true tragedy of the women’s situation is that they lack the social or political power to change the way they are treated.

The New York Times reports, in an article written by Robert Mackay, how fifty-two women were imprisoned for raising their voice and pacifically protesting against a video that showed two police officers flogging a woman surrounded by watching men. The article points out that the laws that punish by flogging are always executed, while laws that do not have so severe a punishment are often overlooked: “As the news agency explained, ‘Floggings carried out under Islamic law are almost a daily punishment in Sudan for crimes ranging from drinking alcohol to adultery. But vague laws on women’s dress and behavior are implemented inconsistently’” (Mackay par 5). This inconsistency in how the law is executed leads me to believe that women’s oppression may be more than simply a political problem; that it is also a cultural problem. The video for which the fifty-two women were protesting against showed men standing in a circle looking at two police officers flogging a helpless women; it is those men’s indifference and their neutrality towards the flogging that shows their support of the act. It also shows that flogging is seen as part of their daily culture and not as a violent and cruel act.

Another example of how women in this countries do not have the same rights and men can be seen in Phyllis Chesler’s The death of Feminism: What’s Next in the Struggle for Women’s Freedom. In her work, Chesler narrates the time she spent in Afghanistan in 1961. Chesler explains how Muslim men seek control and how they “measured [their] own power in terms of how [they are] able to dominate and humiliate […] other men” (Chelser 96).Chesler then notes that “Women were so unimportant in terms of power that [she] never once saw [them] spend any energy trying to dominate or humiliate a women. They were already as low as they could get” (Chesler 96). Although Chesler’s generalized conclusion is based on only two months of living in the Middle East, it makes a very important point: Women cannot change their reality because even if they speak up, no one would listen. The men in power are too worried, too concerned with themselves to listen to second-class citizens.

Phyllis Chesler provides an insight into the experience of women in Muslim countries. Not much time after her arrival to Kabul, Chesler soon wanted to leave. Her new reality became a “captivity” as she began to loser her freedom.  Chesler soon found out that leaving Afghanistan would be a harder mission than she expected. Chesler tried looking for help at the American embassy, were she found no support because she no longer had an American passport (they had taken it from her when she arrived to Afghanistan). Her husband Ali would not help her because he wanted her to stay with him. Chesler describes her situation and explains how “[she] had been sent back to the tenth century and placed under house arrest” (Chesler 94). It is not until she fainted and was diagnosed with hepatitis that Ali’s father gave her a new passport and a one-way plane ticket out of Kabul. Chesler’s lack of power to change her reality serves as an example of the helplessness of Muslim women. Chesler was American living in a wealthy and prestigious Afghan home, what if she had been a normal Afghan girl living in the suburbs of Kabul? Would she have been able to escape? I am afraid to say that if Chesler had not been in such a generous position, her sickness would have probably been the cause of her death. It is important to note that Chesler never claims that all women living under Islam are suffering and unhappy. She often mentions how her husband’s mother and her sisters-in-law lived a very happy life. However, Chesler’s generalization of women’s situation is based on the idea that it is the majority of the Muslim women do suffer from violence and oppression. Those that don’t are simply exceptions of the rest. Chesler’s experience can be viewed as a specific case that is out of date. Nevertheless, even though Chesler’s experience occurred more than fifty years ago, the Taliban invasion to Afghanistan was nothing but a drawback to the country. The women that lived during the Taliban regime were as oppressed, if not oppressed even more, than the women in Chesler’s experience were.

A different text that illustrates how Muslim women can rebel against their culture is Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by the professor Azar Nafisi. Nafisi narrates her life in Iran and compares it to different classical books. The first chapter of the book, entitled “Lolita”, talks about a group of women that met once a week and discussed literature, something that was forbidden by the Iranian government. Nafisi explains how those meetings became an open space were the women could be themselves. They could take off their burkas, and simply laugh without being afraid. Nafisi explains the importance of their group by describing two pictures. In the first picture, the entire group is standing in front of a wall wearing their burkas. You can only see their eyes. The second picture is the same group of women standing by the same wall; the only difference is that they are not wearing their burkas. Every girl’s personality shows in this picture, for you can see how they are dressed and who they are.  Nafisi’s group represents an inner battle for all its members and maybe they are not openly fighting against the regime, but they are definitely fighting to make their lives better.

All of Nafisi’s student come from different backgrounds and live different lives, yet one story is particularly worth telling for it shows a perfect example of how women are oppressed by the Islamic law.

Sanz and five of her girlfriends had gone for a two-day vacation by the Caspian Sea. On their first day, they had decided to visit her friend’s fiancé in an adjoining villa. […] Then ‘they’ came with their guns, the morality squads, surprising them by jumping over the walls. […] The guards took all of them to a special jail for infractions in matters of morality. There, despite their protests, the girls were kept in a small, dark room [and] they were denied the right to call their parents. […] The girls were then given a summary trial, forced to sign a document confessing to sins they had not committed and subjected to twenty-five lashes (Nafisi 72-73).

Sanz’s story is not an exception to the rule. She was lashed twenty-five times for simply being alone with five other friends and a man. They were not drinking alcohol nor were they doing any other activity that goes against Islamic law. Nevertheless, this did not stop their prosecutors from punishing the innocent girls.

In the Muslim world, and more specifically, in the countries that are under strict Islamic law, most women are mistreated, underappreciated, and oppressed. Their place in society stops them from being able to manifest their disagreement without being prosecuted. However, Nafisi’s story presents an interesting idea; she suggests that although women may not be able to change society, they can definitely do things in their lives that can help them become happier. They might not be able to change how they are seen in the streets and by men, but they can change the way they live inside their household. The problem with this idea is that most Muslim women would never think of it because they have no sense of individual identity and they are not aware that their life could in fact be different.

Women’s oppression in the Islamic world raises a question for those of us who live in a free and modern society. Do we and can we intervene on their behalf? Jurisdiction and politics dictate that we have no say on what happens inside other countries and that intervening can be a cause of war. However, we must ask ourselves and be empathetic. If we were the ones suffering from oppression, wouldn’t we want someone to help us? It is my belief that we do have an obligation, as free man, to stretch a hand out to those who seek our help. However, that obligation is limited by our ability to actually help and not cause more damage. A military invasion to those countries might actually destroy more than what it could create. That is why I conclude that the best way to help those women is through education. By establishing education programs in those countries we can help teach an oppressed society how to think independently. By giving women education, we offer them a way to fight the system without standing on the battlefield, just as Nafisi and her students did. 

Work Cited:

Chesler, Phyllis. The Death of Feminism: What’s Next in the Struggle for Women’s Freedom. New York: Palgrave, 2006. Print

Nafisi, Azar. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books. New York: Random House, 2008. Print.

Mackay, Robert. “Flogging Video Sparks Protest in Sudan.” The Lede: Blogging the News. The New York Times. Web. 10 Jan. 2011